Sorry for the delay in updates (if anyone other than my mom is actually reading this). It's been a busy few weeks and I don't even know where to begin. Rainy season has begun which I have really been enjoying so far. When a storm rolls in the temperature noticeably drops several degrees and I might even stop sweating for a minute or two. This also means that I got to buy a pretty awesome looking rain outfit for riding my bicycle around.  All I can think about is how similar I look to the tin man from The Wizard of Oz.

In other news I went to a river blessing to thank the river for everything it does for us. In the  middle of the ceremony a snake came out of the river and someone murdered it. I went to teach english at a camp in another district and got to hang out with a few of my volunteer friends. Went to Chiang Rai and ate pizza. Worked at the health center and am developing programs about teen pregnancy, drugs, and HIV/AIDS to introduce at the schools. Gave a speech in Thai to some very important people about a program I am planning. Working on more dengue mosquito traps. Went to a waterfall and national park and hiked with  some neighbors. Started weekly bike rides with one of the youth groups. Teach english twice a week. Set up my new home. Started a gigantic vegetable garden. Killed a scorpion. Saw a mosquito the size of my fist (I'm still not convinced this was actually a mosquito but the kids kept telling me it was). Fended off many attempts of people to marry me to their brother, father, nephew, uncle etc. etc. 

And now I'm off to play with kids at a nursery school, enjoy the pictures!

My neighbor. She stands in her door and yells La to get my attention while I eat breakfast. How could I not be happy waking up to that?

Playing in the sand outside my house. They love to plant weeds and then water them hoping they'll grow. I'm always terrified that they are going to unearth a scorpion, but so far I have only found one massive one and am hoping that I never encounter another.

My beautiful new home! I live in this big house all by myself. It's in a family compound so I always have neighbors over and eat dinner at a neighbors home or someone comes over to eat with me. I'm pretty sure I could get away with never cooking since people bring me plates of food every night.

Living room.

Kitchen.

Laundry room/kitchen sink/bathroom sink. This washing machine is the kind that you have to put the water in drain it, run it, drain it, run it, drain it, run it, and then spin it to get a bit of the water out before hanging the clothes outside. Unfortunately the spin part doesn't work and it's rainy season so the clothes I washed 3 days ago are still not dry. I have to wash a lot of my clothes by hand because my washing machine is a bit violent but I love having it for towels and things.

Bedroom.

More pictures

 The three pictures above are from an earth day program I held with one of the local youth groups. The public health officer came and discussed recycling and waste management in our village, where it all goes, and what they can do to help cut down on the trash. Then I taught the kids how to make picture frames from recycled materials, and toys for kids from plastic bottles. We also made headbands and hair supplies from scraps collected from the local seamstress. Originally we were supposed to spend the morning cleaning up the area and picking up trash before doing the crafts but it had been raining for 48 hours straight and showed no sign of stopping so I had to cancel that part of the project.

Some of the finished products from the youth group. I am going to help them sell the hair clips and headbands they made at the market and around the village to help raise money for their group

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 Mien hill tribe women in their traditional clothing. They wear these outfits every single day no matter what the weather is. I don't know how they do it.

 Mhong hill tribe women. Their outfits are incredibly intricate and take them months to make. I am going to be working with one of the community groups to help them market their designs to tourists.

 One of my saturday english lessons. I have only been able to teach twice so far and have had around 40 kids each time. Yesterday a woman I didn't know came up to me and told me her kids love learning english with me and wanted to know if she could come to the lessons as well. 

 Island in the Gulf of Thailand. Went here for a 3 day business trip with everyone from the government office.

 Village health volunteers helping me make the dengue mosquito traps. Rainy season is fast approaching and the public health officer is worried about a large increase in Dengue so I am really hoping that these traps work and we can put them out into the communities. We just had the first case of Dengue for the season, and from peoples reactions I am assuming it is much earlier than expected.

 A typical afternoon or saturday/sunday at my house. I gave the kids some paper and colored pencils to keep them entertained for a few minutes. Yesterday before I could even unlock my door I was surrounded by 7 kids asking me to play with them.

 When it rains my house is swarming with bugs. For some reason all of the bugs die during the night and the ants come out and eat or drag away all of the bodies but leave the wings. This is a picture of the wings left behind in just one of the rooms in my house. I have to hide in my room under my mosquito net as soon as it gets dark. I turn no lights on upstairs and bring snacks, water, my book and anything else I might need with me to try to avoid getting attacked. I can't even shower after dark because I will be covered in bugs before I can dry off. 

I'm famous

This afternoon I was walking by someone's desk at the village health clinic and saw that the website they had up on their computer had a big picture of me right in the middle. I stopped and stared for a second before someone came up and said oh you like? I frequently wondered what they did with all the pictures they take of me and now I know. I'll post the link to the site below. If you click on the picture of me on the main page a lot more pictures come up. Underneath the photo it says "Health Innovation, Mosquito Traps." They are all of me teaching people how to make dengue mosquito traps. We only made a few traps and set them up around the health center. In a few weeks I will go back and check the traps to see if they contain a lot of larvae. If we think they are effective than I hope to hold a training for all the health volunteers in my community so they can implement it in each of the neighborhoods. I think I may also be starring in a video on the website soon. Yesterday I dressed up as a doctor and examined someone with TB, then diagnosed him, and gave him medicine. All of this was in Thai and I was really struggling trying to say it so the video should be pretty funny. The video is to raise awareness of TB and encourage people to call a doctor.

This week I went on a trip with the government office to the Gulf of Thailand for 3 days, which involved sitting on a bus for about 40 hours. I also moved into my new home! It is starting to look pretty nice and I love having the freedom to eat cereal for breakfast and go to the bathroom without someone asking me how it was. I have a lot more stories and photos that I promise to post next week but I have no time today or tomorrow (it takes a long time with the slow internet)  and won't have internet again until next Tuesday. But enjoy the website!

http://www.ck203.chors.org/